


It Twists And Burns

by Sokorra



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Children, F/M, Gen, M/M, Miscarriage, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-16
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-19 13:47:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1472083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sokorra/pseuds/Sokorra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of introspective one-shots involving the main crew of Enterprise during season 4 and beyond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dark Whiskey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MeredithBrody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/gifts).



> This is dedicated to Bee, who convinced me to continue this series. 
> 
> The main pairings are going to be Trip/T'Pol, Malcolm/Hoshi and Jon/Erika. But this series will reference Mal/Hayes and Hoshi/Trip as potential paths the characters could have gone on. That is why I included them. I just wanted to put that here because I know how annoying it can be to think you found a fic for your pairing only to find that it was a minor pairing in the story, or it doesn't even up being them in the first place.

He’s on his fourth glass of whiskey when the avoidance thing wears off and all he is is introspective and if he were sober and watching himself he’d say he was even mopey. But then again, what did you expect from a guy who had planned a future with a woman only to attend her wedding to another man.

He didn’t know why it was his luck to fall for her. He had options. Better, more viable options. Yet he couldn’t get her out of his head, his heart, his whatever. It was like he was branded, only no one could see the mark.

It wasn’t something he could talk about with his best friends. Jon was at a point in his life where he wasn’t great, not after the Expanse, but he and Erika had reached a place in their lives for once where they were on the same page and things were going well. He didn’t want to break up Jon’s happiness because he was wallowing in self-pity.

And Malcolm? Malcolm and he had often found themselves attracted to the same women. In fact, it was Mal who even made Trip aware that he was in fact attracted to the science officer. He didn’t think it was a good idea to bring this up to Malcolm considering one of Trip’s maybes had been with Hoshi Sato, and Mal was heads over heels for the woman and hadn’t quite managed to deal with it yet.

So he was stuck with Whiskey and some mellow tunes playing through the room speakers considering all the woman he should have fallen for, but hadn’t because for some odd reason he was destined to fall in love with someone who couldn’t allow herself to love him.

There had been Natalie, though that was a stretch. She had visited him before he had left for Vulcan, tried to reconnect. He could have smiled and tried that for the third time, but he imagined it would have gotten old after awhile, and then neither of them would be happy. And it was just a mirror of what was going on, only he wouldn’t feel quite so like someone had tried to do open-heart surgery without anesthesia. 

There had been Anna Hess. It would have been against the regs for sure, but the Enterprise crew for the most part were relaxed on that whole notion. He hadn’t made a move because he felt personally it would have been a bad idea. Plus he was pretty sure Anna wanted him for his body, nothing else. It would have been fun, but it wouldn’t have been love.

Hoshi had been an option, with her optimism and her early crush on him. He could see himself loving Hoshi, and if you were going to get into a relationship with Hoshi, you were going to have to love her. She would expect nothing less from her partner. He did love her, but somewhere along the way the feelings morphed into baby sister instead of potential lover. He wondered if that was because he had already been falling for T’Pol, or just the way things were meant to be.

Could he reverse that? No, not really. Even if he had the power to switch his feelings around like that, he wouldn’t do that to Mal. And he was pretty sure Hoshi’s crush was quite over with.   
He could find that princess again, or maybe one of the other alien woman who had flirted and sought out his company. Maybe he’d find himself in love with one of them.

He poured himself a fifth drink, knowing full well he’d pay for it in the morning. But he still had time off, T’Pol wasn’t going to come back for another week and a half, Jon was sequestered in some mountain cabin with his once and future (and its about time) girlfriend. Who knew where Mal and Hoshi were, and Travis was probably finding new ways to injure himself while playing sports. None of his friends, his family, would be around tomorrow so he could get as drunk, and as hungover, as he pleased.

He should have just fallen for Hoshi.


	2. Tarnished & Rusted.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malcolm wonders if he'll ever deserve what he wants.

Malcolm Reed is starting to think everyone has gone insane. In the six months since they came back from the Expanse everything and everyone has been different. In some cases, the weight lifted was a blessing, in others it seems like they never left the Expanse behind. But its not the same light atmosphere that had surrounded and filled the ship during its first two years and he finds he misses it.

He himself sometimes feels like he’s not in the right skin anymore. Like nothing fits. He was a soldier, a man whose purpose was to protect his comrades in arms. But he is restless now, not so quick to want to blow something up, feeling tired and run down. He runs the armoury the same, expects the same effort from his men, but he doesn’t fight on security issues as much. He’s just tired of having to fight Jon Archer every step of the way on things he should know by now.

And he doesn’t know if he can handle another almost-dead situation like what happened when he left Archer behind. It still haunts him.

None of them were the same. Trip wasn’t as cheerful, though he still joked and pretended everything was fine, still looked out for the crew morale. But those who knew him best could see that the southern charm and shine had a few dents in it. Jon wasn’t his optimistic self, and if Malcolm were to be fair, he even was less risky than before, accepting Malcolm’s ideas more easily but that could be because Malcolm argued less often. T’Pol looked like a wounded deer half the time Trip was on board, and seemed to be second guessing herself with more frequency. It was unnerving.

Travis wasn’t his happy-go-lucky self anymore. War had tarnished even his bright shine.

And Hoshi had somehow become this confident woman, a woman he had fallen for, and probably not one he deserved. She was more suspicious, less trusting, but there was still that element of Hoshi he had always loved being near. Not that he could ever tell her. She deserved someone less tarnished. 

And as for him, Malcolm Reed? He was just tired. He longed for when his attempts to blow things up were academic and not in war. He longed for war games and less actual war.

And he longed to be the guy who deserved Hoshi, deserved the sacrifice that Hayes had made.

That moment, there with Jeremiah, would be forever etched in his mind. He and Hayes hadn’t gotten along much, but at the end they had a respect for each other that bypassed the annoyances as they struggled to adjust to shared custody of the Enterprise’s security. And the man had died saving not only the ship, but making sure that Hoshi came back. There had been something that told him that it there was more to Hayes’ sacrifice then what seemed obvious but he couldn’t let himself go there. Why add more guilt when he had so much already.

How was he ever going to be deserving of that?

“Mal? Are you okay?” He looked up and saw her staring at him with a concerned look. He thought about being truthful about it, telling her he was thinking he was going crazy trying to be himself and yet change himself to deserve her, to deserve Hayes. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“I’m fine Hoshi.” He smiles gently, and she seems to buy it...mostly.


	3. Songs About Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erika provides some comfort

He feels guilty. He’s happy and he feels guilty about it. More than a quarter of his crew never made it back, so he feels guilty lying in her arms, and being content. He feels like perhaps he should have to suffer just a little bit longer for not bringing them home.

“Its not your fault, Jon.” He glances over at her, noticing that she’s stopped feigning sleep and is now looking at him. He never understood how she always knew his thoughts, knew when he needed a kick to the ego, knew when he needed support and encouragement.

How had he lived the last five years without this woman?

“I would argue, but you’d just override me.”

“I can do that. Because I’m right.” She sits up in bed, the sheet falling to reveal the Flight School logo on her shirt. It was one of his, one she had never returned to him after their breakup when he got Enterprise. It looked better on her anyway, so he wasn’t going to push the issue. But the fact she still wore his clothes amused him.

Its been nearly a year since they returned, and so far things are going well. He had expected to see her less often than he had, but he certainly wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He would just enjoy the fact that his best friend and lover was currently cuddled next to him, his dog a few feet away snoring away, and for the moment none of them were in the middle of a crisis.

He had learned enough in the past four years to know you didn’t get these periods of time very long.

“Not completely.”

“I thought you weren’t going to argue with me?”

“I never said I wasn’t. I said I would but I knew the outcome.” She shook her head with a smile. Was it odd, he wondered, to feel like you were being supercharged by being with someone you love. Like just their presence gave life to you. That was what it was like to feel Erika’s arms around him, to see her smile across the screen. Like a sudden current jump to get him starting again.

He frowned again, his mood souring as he thought about his friends. While there was no crises, it didn’t mean they weren’t mending the broken. Broken bodies, broken spirits, broken hearts. They were still healing from the expanse, and the last year had seemed like a non-stop pace. Like you just got saved from drowning, just to get splashed with water. 

“Stop thinking like that, its depressing me by osmosis.” Erika had shifted down to get more comfortable in the bed. “Things will get better. For all of us.”

“I certainly hope so.”

And he really wished Erika had been right.


	4. Despair in Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Travis Mayweather looses his faith.

The funeral for little Elizabeth had taken place at dawn. At least the Earth based one. Apparently T’Pol and Trip had agreed to bury their daughter on Vulcan, but a plague was going to be placed in the Tucker family mausoleum in southern Georgia.

The entire crew had come. Trip was well liked and respected, and T’Pol for all her faults was a part of the family. Most of them had come to like and respect her too, after getting used to her different way of reacting.  
Travis felt like screaming. It wasn’t fair, what they had done to this little girl. She hadn’t asked for any of this. Hell, she had been created for this and that made this all the worse. They had made it out like she was some child two parents had chosen to have and was the ruin of Humanity. No, she was a victim of it.

It was hard to keep your faith in a species that would artificially conceive a little girl just to watch her die. To purposely watch her die so that other people would be too afraid to actually try it.

He was angry. More so than he had been when he had learned Gannet had done what she had. He could forgive her, in time, but he couldn’t bring himself to forgive Paxton and Terra Prime for the death of Elizabeth Tucker. Or for the pain that now was plain on Trip Tucker’s face and the misery that practically oozed out of T’Pol.

It was no secret that T'pol had become more emotive in the last year or so, but today she would make her people proud. She showed no emotion unless you knew her well as Travis did. Her eyes showed her sorrow. Her tight grip on Trip’s hand showed her pain. But he could already hear the whispers from people who didn’t know her about how cold she was reacting.

The Senior Staff formed a sort of barrier between the parents and the crowds. They were book-ended by Trip’s parents and siblings, creating a wall between the masses and the two who mourned the most.

What also pissed Travis off was the fact that they had all suffered for a whole year to keep peace for the people who had done this. To protect the Earth from dying, from being blown up by a species afraid of them. So what do humans do? They gather together to do it themselves, and twist the whole concept of “do unto others”.

He had only seen the baby once, on the ride back to the ship. T'pol had been softly singing to her. She had a good voice, surprisingly. He hadn’t expected Vulcan’s to have lullabies, but he supposed there was a logical reason for them. The baby had been watching her mother, erupted by her voice. Trip had been slumped beside them, looking down with a look of confusion and utter love.


	5. Songs About Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoshi and T'Pol commiserate over tragedy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: This chapter refers to a miscarriage. I know this can be a difficult subject for many, so if you do not want to read this chapter, please continue to the next chapter. This is the only chapter in which this will be referenced.

Over the course of their acquaintance, T’pol and Hoshi had had moments of bonding.  It hadn’t been much, and it was too spread out to actually call themselves close friends.  The Meld dream had probably been the closet they had come.  Hoshi could confidently say they had become friends, but she couldn’t really call T’Pol someone she’d confined in when she needed to share something personal.

But in this case, T’Pol probably knew something of what she was going through.  Not exactly, because T’Pol had lost her child due to hate and Hoshi had simply lost hers due to nature.  Something had gone wrong, and her body had rejected the pregnancy.  She hadn’t even known she was pregnant.  Perhaps that was why she was having trouble dealing with it.

She hadn’t told anyone about the miscarriage.  Phlox knew because he had been the one to figure it out and give her the help necessary.  She knew she would eventually have to tell the father, but she couldn’t quite get her mind around her own reaction to it yet.

She was relieved at times, for this seemed like the worst time to be having a child. While Starfleet planned to one day have family vessels, none of their current ships were built to care for families and alternate timelines aside, she doubted they’d allow her to.  She wasn’t ready to give up the path her career had set her on, and her choices at the moment meant she would have to.

She was also sad, because after Phlox had told her the cause of her extreme cramping had been a miscarriage, her brain had started to wonder, to imagine in her head what it would have looked like.  Would it have been like her and be so curious about how people communicate or more like his or her father and be a protector.

It was almost a relief to finally tell someone her secret, even if it was T’Pol.  Remarkably the other woman simply nodded, and placed a hand on her shoulder in understanding.  T’Pol had regained some of her emotional suppression, but that small gesture meant everything to Hoshi.  It meant T’Pol was trying to be supportive.

“How do you stop thinking about it?” she asked.

“You don’t,”  T’Pol answered.


	6. Sunlight Remains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phlox and a happier moment.

Phlox had been present for many births.  His own children, the children of his wives, even a cousin or two.  Over the course of his long career as a doctor he had participated in the delivery of several newborns.

But there was something special, second only to his own children, about being present for the birth of Serena Archer Hernandez. The baby girl had been born healthy and nearly on her due date much to the relief of her mother, who had suffered miscarriages before. Granted, he was sure that Erika would have prefered perhaps a slightly smaller child, but was none the less quite glad to hold her 9 pound four ounce baby girl.

The baby was born in San Francisco, with both parents present. Gardner had managed to get The Enterprise back into Space Dock in time for the last two weeks of Erika’s pregnancy.  Both Columbia and Enterprise were getting updates and checks by Jupiter Station.  Erika had another six months of parental leave which meant Columbia would be run by Veronica Fletcher for the foreseeable future.  A fact the godmother of Serena liked to bring up quite often, mentioning her plans for Columbia, the more outrageous the better.

At the moment, the new mother was sleeping while the new father was slowly rocking his newborn while the godfather watched.

“She’s perfect, Jon.”  Phlox smiled at the affection in the engineer’s voice, though he could hear the sadness behind it.  Two years after Elizabeth they all still mourned.  He continued to tidy the room, as the two other men talked.

“She is. I...”  Phlox looked up to see Jon almost choked up.  “I really almost didn’t expect her to come.  We weren’t planning on kids, not now anyway.  And part of me just kept remembering what happened the last time.”

“Well, she’s here, healthy and whole.”

“I’m sorry, Trip.”

“Don’t be.”  the words were said with a harsh tint to them.  Phlox frowned, not understanding the message being said between the lines.  After six years with this crew, there were still some things he was not privy to.  Trip and Jon had been friends long enough that they could say things without words.  “Don’t...Let’s not do this today.”  Jon nodded.

“Simon is coming tomorrow,”  Jon continued, as if the conversation had never happened, that Elizabeth had never been referenced.  “Erika wants to do the ceremony before he has to leave for Arizona again.”

“Am I going to have to fight for the role,”  Trip asked, and Phlox was glad to hear amusement filter through.

“Mal maybe. Serena’s already got him wrapped around her finger.  I caught him trying to come up with a lesson plan on ammunition while he was holding her earlier.”

“Well, you won’t be able to say she wouldn’t be taught well.”

“I still think that perhaps we should wait till after she is able to spell the word ammunition before letting her learn how to use it.”

Phlox couldn’t help himself but imagine the future of this group of friends.  He couldn’t see it being much longer before others tried to stay hopeful and start families. He could see them all gathering for reunions, teaching their children and each other’s children their skills.  Jon starting that academy he had dreamt up, Serena learning to pilot a shuttle on her Uncle Travis’ lap.  Malcolm teaching her how to use a phase pistol for the first time.  T’Pol tutoring her on math, and Hoshi coming through the door and greeting her in some alien language.  Phlox getting to measure her growth spurts for her yearly check-ups.

Serena was going to be a well loved child, and that made Phlox happy to see.


	7. Fairy Tales and Logic Puzzles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T'Pol gets a lesson from her 'neice', Serena.

T’Pol was at a loss.  She had figured that child care shouldn’t be difficult, not after dealing with wars and hostile species.  A human infant could not be harder to deal with than an adult Andorian.  However, it would seem she was not prepared for the differences in which her human comrades raised their children and how a Vulcan would raise their own.  She of course realised that there would be more emotion, but even young Vulcans weren’t expected to be completely suppressed already.

However, Hoshi had left behind some books that her infant daughter, Toshiko, enjoyed.  And Serena Archer and her younger brother Henry seemed up to listening to T’Pol reading so they were all gathered on the couch. Tosh, being only a few months old remained in her carrier, snuggled into a blanket that had some pink animal on it.  T’Pol had resisted reading up on unicorns till after her duty as babysitter had ended.  Henry was curled up on her lap, one thumb in his mouth, while Serena sat to the side, reading along with T’Pol.

T’Pol read the words, but she found the story somewhat...odd.  It was a tale of three anamorphic pigs, who lived in three houses.  One lived in a house of straw, another one made of wood, and a third lived in a brick home.  Now, while she didn’t admit this to the children, she found it illogical that a pig, even one who had sentience, would build a house out of straw.  The tale, as she had learned earlier when she asked Hoshi, appeared to be Germanic in origin, and the climate in that section of Earth would make a Straw house very unadvisable.  The Wood house was at least climate appropriate.

And as far as she knew, wolves did not have the lung capacity to blow down wood structures.  But the children seemed to enjoy the story, despite its logical fallacies.

“And he slammed the pot down...” T’pol paused.  The version she had been reading had been odd but so far not too displeasing, but given the next passage had the third pig serving the wolf to his brothers, she had to wonder if this was quite appropriate to young minds.”

“And served the wolf!”  Serena summarized, giving T’Pol an odd look. “You should always finish the story Aunt Polly.”  T’Pol raised an eyebrow at the nickname Jon’s daughter had gifted her with.

“That was my intention, Serena.  However, I was puzzled by the ending.  I’m not sure what the meaning of this story is.  It is quite illogical.”

“Its a fairy tale, Aunt Polly.  Its not meant to be logical.”  The raised eyebrow stayed raised as the young girl rolled her eyes at her ‘Aunt’s” confusion.  

“So Fairy Tales are not meant to having meaning?”

“Most of them do.”  Henry seemed fascinated with his sister’s responses, although he was still fighting sleep.  His eyes dipped every once and awhile and didn’t open for a few seconds.  She suspected the young boy would soon be napping.

“And the meaning of this one?”

“Don’t be an idiot, do your research.  At least that is what Uncle Simon says.”  T’Pol paused to think about that.  It made sense.

“I see.  But wouldn’t that make this a fable then?”

“I suppose. I’d ask Mom, she knows everything.”  T’Pol doubted that, but Erika Hernandez was a specialist in communication.  It wouldn’t surprise her to find the woman had a background in literature as well.  “I wouldn’t ask Dad.  He always ends up making his own stories.”

“You should record him next time,” Trip said entering the room.  “I’m sure there are alot of people willing to pay to see Archer’s Fables.”

“I thought this type of literature was free to the masses?”  T’Pol said, a bit perplexed.”

“Its...Its just an expression, T’Pol. I meant people would be really eager to see Archer make a fool of himself telling children’s stories.”

“Hopefully nothing involving Gazelles.”

“Yeah, that’s the more adult edition,”  he joked, walking toward and then sitting on the couch, reaching over to play with Henry.  He rocked the carrier slightly and it seemed to put the infant over the edge and into sleep.  T’Pol quickly suppressed the twinge of sorrow that came at the sight.

Trip would have been an excellent father, had their daughter lived.  She could see it every day in the way he treated his several godchildren, how he responded to letters from students and when he gave the occasional tour involving ambassadors and their children.  A part of her wished she could give him the chance to be a father of his own child, but even now, years later, the pain of Elizabeth’s death was still too great to even imagine attempting a pregnancy.  Trip never pushed, and she knew that he would be happy even if they never had another child, but she wanted that for him.

Trip seemed to notice her mood, however.  She didn’t know if it was because of their long standing friendship, or because of the bond that had formed without their knowledge.  He had always had seemed to have some insight into her moods, even before they became lovers.  

Not always.  That was too imprecise a term.  When they first met he had been wrong a good deal of the time.  But by the time the neuropressure sessions had started, he had already seemed to have a good gauge on her mood.

He reached over and took her hand and squeezed.  He had started doing that.  Small gestures to prove he understood what she was feeling.  Nothing that would be noticed by the general public, nothing that someone would see as excessive emoting.  A simple touch to the hand, or shoulder, brushing his fingers across her elbow as they passed in the hallway on more stressful days.

“Can you read us a story, Uncle Trip?”  Serena asked, taking the book from T’Pol’s hands and handing it to her godfather.  “You always do the voices.”  That Aunt Polly doesn’t. was left unspoken.  T’Pol was not offended.  She knew that Trip made a better storyteller to the human children.  He could express what she could not.  She moved to put Serena on her lap and turned them all to face Trip who looked half amused and half put upon as he reopened the book.

“Ah....how about this one.  The Heir and the Frog”  She settled back as Trip started, allowing his voice to captivate her as much as the children.  She could only hope that one day she be ready and he be reading to an audience that included their own child.


End file.
